


Confidant

by MilayaMilenZeal



Series: MIA Brother [1]
Category: Spectrobes
Genre: Family, Gen, Hinted (budding) relationship, MIA relatives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9131920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilayaMilenZeal/pseuds/MilayaMilenZeal
Summary: 1) Rex wishes his little brother would grow up a little faster, but at the same time, he wishes nothing would ever change.2) Rallen laments on events of the past that cannot be changed and wishes for the presence of the one person who always knew what to say to make things better.3) Jeena thinks back on her meeting with her partner and wonders absently what their partnership has actually evolved into, and if there's a chance of it becoming more...4) Liz looks out upon the world as her thoughts go back to the past, when things were much simpler, wishing to herself that she wants to go back to that time





	1. Rex

**Author's Note:**

> This is the story that started several other stories involving Rex, who I believe managed to integrate quite well into the universe.

“Okay, Rallen, watch carefully now!” said a tall young man with a long mass of orange hair to the much smaller boy watching him anxiously. Slowly, the man, took a deep breath, then bent through his knees while pulling his heels off of the ground. Then he turned his upper body slightly so that his left leg stood out, and brought up his hands, curled into loose fists, his right one resting 20 cm near his chin, while bringing his left shoulder to it.

The child watched anxiously even as the young man’s left hand moved forward while his weight shifted onto his front leg. And then, as the young man pulled back his left, his right came forward to add another punch to the empty air before him. He held that pose for a little longer, before he pulled back his arm. “Well?” he quipped cheekily. “Think you can manage that, little man?”

As expected, the boy puffed up his cheeks angrily, before he hopped to his feet. “I can! And way better than you!”

The young man laughed at the kid’s enthusiasm as he eased his stance. It was always so easy to rile him up. “Then go ahead and show me you’re a better man!” he challenged, stepping aside to allow the child to have some room.

He wasn’t surprised when the boy managed to copy his stance almost perfectly, but the slight shaking of his limbs indicated just how uncomfortable and unfamiliar the stance felt to him. However, the child made no verbal response to it, the look of sheer determination on his face speaking volumes.

When the boy’s fist moved forward, he wasn’t surprised to find that the kid had managed to do a perfect straight. Even when the second punch flew, he was not surprised. He had been expecting it, after all.

The bright grin on the boy’s face when he finished was rewarded with a similar one on that of the young man. Still grinning, he stepped up beside the boy, giving him a tiny nod. The boy gave him a nod back, then focused on looking straight ahead.

“…One!”

Their left fists flew forward at the same time.

“Two!”

The left fist retreated to make room for the right.

“One! … Two! … One! … Two!”

After ten consecutive punches, the words no longer needed to be uttered and they merely focused on their punches, throwing them forward with perfect precision and as much force as they could muster. Their movements were fluent and kept getting faster and faster and time wore on. Despite the differences in age, the small boy could easily keep up with the young man and did not stop at all even when perspiration started dribbling down his chin to hit the floor.

For that brief span of time, the world around them seemed to fade away as they focused solely on punching.

And if he had not set the timer before they had begun, they might have been going on until the middle of the night when their energy was totally drained and they couldn’t even move to their beds. Stopping quickly, he reached down and put a hand on the child’s shoulder. “That’s enough for today,” he said solemnly.

“Eh?! B-but we just got started!!” the boy cried out, pouting, but he could tell that the exercise was taking its toll on the boy. He was panting for breath, and he looked ready to fall over in exhaustion. And yet, his sheer determination was pushing him to continue. He knew he could probably handle it, but he figured the kid was going to have enough sore muscles as is, and he didn’t need even more.

“Maybe, but you have to get enough sleep or you’re not getting up in the morning,” he said simply.

“I don’t wanna go to bed yet!!”

He rolled his eyes a bit, before looking to the kid with a predatory grin on his face. “Reaaally now?”

The boy realized where this was going and immediately tried to back up, but he wasn’t fast enough to avoid the man’s arm as it snagged him up or the other hand as it slipped under his shirt easily. And less than a split second after, the boy was howling with laughter, kicking with his feet as he tried to get out of the hold as he curled up to try and evade the attack.

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooohahahahaha! Brother! Sstttttoooohahahaap!!” the boy managed to get out amidst his laughing.

“Oh I don’t think so!” the young man laughed out, keeping his little brother right there in his grip, though making sure not to injure him in any way.

Only when oxygen became an issue did he finally let go. After about a minute of Rallen panting for breath, he looked up and glared at the young man. “That was unfair, Rex!” he whined.

Rex only laughed. “Oh I beg to disagree. Now! Off to bed with you, you little troublemaker!” he quipped, promptly tossing Rallen over his shoulder.

“WAH! Brotheeeeeer!! I dun wanna go to bed yet!!!” Rallen protested, starting to kick and punch, but Rex merely smirked and carried the smaller boy down the hallway. Because, if he knew his little brother well enough, his struggles would seize once they were three-fourth of the way there.

And no sooner had they passed that point, or Rallen’s kicks lost their vigor and he finally fell limply against his brother’s back. Rex allowed a small smile as he walked into the room his brother and he occupied. The room was very tidy, with two simple beds, a single desk, two closets in the back, and a trunk at each bed’s feet.

Moving over to the bed on the right, Rex moved aside the covers and let his little brother slide off his shoulder onto the mattress. The smaller boy was definitely out for the count, so he would not be getting any help with this. It would not do to sleep in sweat-soaked clothes, even for someone as energetic as Rallen.

He pulled Rallen up slightly so that he could rid his brother of the sweaty articles, tossing them into the hamper hidden next to a closet. Once done with that, he reached under the pillow, pulling out Rallen’s bedclothes and putting them on the small boy. Considering that Rallen was nearly entirely limp, this took a bit of time, but finally, he had the boy dressed for bed.

Quietly, he tucked the boy in, lightly ruffling the boy’s short orange locks before he began to get changed himself. He had been doing these exercises for much longer, but he was still equally soaked in sweat as the younger boy.

Yawning widely, he finally just dropped on the bed, not really bothering with getting under the blanket. It wasn’t really that cold right now, so it didn’t matter much.

When he heard something move on the other bed, he looked over briefly. He allowed a small smile when he saw Rallen had just turned on his side. He always seemed to sleep better on his right side for some reason. Shaking the matter off, Rex put his arms under his pillow and dropped his head on it, falling asleep almost immediately.

 

Even though Rallen said nothing the following morning, Rex could tell the boy’s muscles were aching like all hell. But he also knew that there was no way that Rallen would admit to the pain, nor would he voice how much it actually hurt. So, Rex did the only thing he could do right now to make it go away.

“Rallen, come over here.”

“Huh? Okay…” Of course, Rallen didn’t question it as Rex climbed off his own bed and settled on his knees. For a moment, Rallen just blinked, before the intention seemed to click and he followed his brother’s example and dropped to his knees.

Rex smirked as they both moved forward and put their hands on the ground before stretching out their legs.

“Ready?”

“Hmhmm!”

“Go!”

With that said, they both lowered themselves down, until their noses nearly touched the floor, before they pushed up again. Rex kept count as they continued, keeping an eye on his little brother as they did. Normally, he would do two sets of thirty push-ups, but he wasn’t sure if Rallen would be able to handle that, even if he pushed himself to it. Especially with his aching arms.

To many, it would seem to be a cruel treatment, but Rex had personal experience and knew better than anyone that this was the best way to take care of the aching.

When they reached 15, Rex could tell that Rallen was really straining to pull it off now. And at 16, his arms began to shudder, even as he forced himself back up. Not that he made it up before his arms gave up on him, making him fall flat on his face.

“Ow!” Rallen looked ready to cry, but he held it in as he tried to get up again. Rex didn’t attempt to help him up, since this was a matter of pride. The boy somehow managed to get back up, panting slightly, though Rex assumed it was partly to stop his tears. He wasn’t really hurt, he knew; the tears he was holding back were tears of embarrassment, since he probably felt like he let Rex down because he couldn’t even do 20 pushups.

However, Rex reached over and ruffled Rallen’s hair good-naturedly, allowing a grin when the kid looked up. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. We all have to start somewhere.”

Those simple words made Rallen smile up at his big brother, his fears of letting Rex down forgotten immediately.

With the morning exercises out of the way, the duo headed toward the closet, grabbing some fresh clothes before heading to the washroom to get freshened up. After all the exercises from last night and that morning, it was a welcome relief. They spent about 15 minutes in there in companionable silence, before they both got dressed as they started hearing movement downstairs.

The duo exchanged a look before smirking and dashing down the hall. Rex was in the lead as he took bigger steps, and he managed to rush down the steps without skipping a single step, then jumped the last few steps onto the ground and immediately whipped around. Because he knew, the second he did, Rallen would jump down after him.

“Gotcha!” Rex crowed, as he grabbed the smaller boy and proceeded to hang him upside down, making the boy howl in laughter.

“Reeeex!! No fair!” Rallen laughed out even as Rex spun around several times, before he finally relented and put his little brother back upright on the ground. Naturally, Rallen wobbled around a bit, before he managed to stand up without falling over, earning him a hair-ruffle from Rex.

“Are you boys finished?” came an amused voice from the kitchen, making the duo look up.

“Yes ma’am!” both quipped with a playful salute to the red-haired woman watching them with a warm smile.

“Oh stop that,” the woman laughed. “Now come on, breakfast is ready.”

Neither of the boys said “no” to that and followed their mother into the kitchen. They could have smelled the food from upstairs, but when it was this close to them, it was almost enough to make their mouths water. Luckily, they both had enough experience with it to stop themselves from drooling too much and just started to eat.

The table was silent for a while, with the exception of their quiet munching, before their mother spoke up. “Rex, when is your next assignment?”

Rallen instantly stopped mid-bite, before he turned to face Rex, who didn’t seem that bothered with the question and merely kept chewing on the food he had in his mouth. Once he swallowed, he looked up to their mother and said: “Not for a few days, at least. I’m still on leave for the moment.” It didn’t escape his notice that Rallen visibly relaxed at those words, though there was still that nervous glint in his eyes.

“Alright.” That was all their mother had to say, and once again, the table fell silent.

Rex acted like nothing was wrong, but his brother’s behavior kept distracting him. He could figure what was wrong, though.

Rallen looked up to Rex like a father figure ever since their father had disappeared, and the mere thought of Rex leaving would’ve brought tears to his eyes in the past. The second time he had left on a mission, Rex had feared he’d need a crowbar to get Rallen off him. Not that Rallen had actually been allowed in the hangar, but he had somehow made his way over there.

Shaking the thought away, Rex just focused on his own breakfast. He still wanted to finish a few things today while Rallen was at school, anyway. Something that would, hopefully, make his next assignment a little easier for Rallen to handle.

When they finished breakfast, Rallen hurried to the hallway to get his shoes and jacket, while their mother went to do the dishes. Rex stood and stretched for a moment, before following his little brother, smiling as Rallen was hopping into his shoe with his jacket half on.

“Rallen, seriously…” Rex laughed, walking over and aiding the boy with getting ready.

Once Rallen had grabbed his bag, the duo was out the door and hurrying over to the airbus. Well, Rallen was hurrying, Rex was just being pulled along. The people in that neighborhood knew them very well, so they were already used to seeing Rex being pulled along like that and didn’t look up as they stopped at the busstop.

Rex took a seat and Rallen climbed up next to him, grinning up brightly. Rex just returned the favor, before they both settled to wait for the bus. Luckily for them, it didn’t take that long before it arrived. As they stood, Rex reached into his backpocket and pulled out the two cards he had for them both, giving one of them to Rallen.

When the bus stopped and opened its doors, Rallen climbed in first, and Rex was right behind him. Passing the cards past the reader, they proceeded to find some seats (though Rex nodded to the driver beforehand, who returned the favor with a smile). Rallen always wanted the window seat, which didn’t really bother Rex that much, since it allowed him to keep a better eye on his little brother. Thus far, it had proven to be unnecessary, but Rex didn’t like to take the chance.

Glancing to his brother, he saw that Rallen was sitting up on his knees (feet off the seat) and staring outside to watch the scenery flash by. Rex allowed a small smile, since he knew that Rallen would recognize when they were almost there by the scenery rather than the name of their stop. So he wasn’t surprised when, halfway to their stop, Rallen reached up his hand and attempted to reach for the stop button.

Rex waited for a few seconds, watching, before Rallen frowned and promptly hit the button from below. That was enough, though, and the light in the bus lit up red to show it would stop at the next stopover. Rallen grinned brightly at Rex, and Rex chuckled briefly, before he got up from his seat. Of course, Rallen was fast to follow and hurried after Rex as he headed for the bus’s exit. Once it finally stopped, Rex pressed the button to open the doors, and the duo quickly moved down the steps and out into the open again.

From there, it was a five-minute walk to the school Rallen was going to. Which, coincidentally, was the same one as Rex’s old school, though it had undergone such changes that the elder didn’t even recognize it at times. He felt like an old man sometimes with how everything he knew was changing into something different so fast.

When they were almost at the school, Rex reached down and stopped Rallen from going through the gates.

“Rallen,” he started as he bent down to one knee, “you know the rules, right?”

Rallen groaned a bit. “I knoooooow… Don’t pick fights, don’t be a bully, and don’t use violence to solve problems.”

“Good.” Rex smiled and ruffled Rallen’s hair. He knew very well that Rallen knew it through and through, especially since Rex had threatened to stop teaching him to fight if he broke either of those rules. Rallen really did want to be as strong as Rex, since he desperately wished to have Rex’s love, and he believed that this was the best way. Not that he really needed to go that far for that, but oh well. It was a good way to keep Rallen out of trouble at school, at least. “Glad to see that you still remember! Now! Let’s go!” he said and got up.

Rallen grinned and nodded energetically, before running ahead with Rex right behind him.

 

Rex tapped the small stylus on his desk in thought. He was looking at the jumble of numbers and letters silently, and while programming wasn’t his best subject, he could do it well enough. He just hoped he could finish it before he was off his leave and had to go on another assignment. He wanted to get it done as soon as possible, and he knew that once Rallen came home, he had more important things to do.

Thankfully, he was almost done. All he needed to do now was install the IP-addresses and that was only a matter of the correct numbers.

He heard the phone ring downstairs, but he knew his mother would take care of that, so he started scribbling down the numbers he knew by heart. At this point, he was VERY happy with his good memory, since it spared him the time of having to look it up.

Just as he finished, though, he heard his mother calling. Silently he saved his work and shut it off before heading out of the room. “Yeah, mom? What’s up?” he asked from the top of the stairs. The response was not what he had expected, or wanted to hear.

“It’s Rallen! Something’s happened at school!”

 

When he arrived, he wasn’t in the best of moods, which should have been an understatement. But what he found only made his mood worse.

Rallen was sitting on a chair just outside the director’s office, his head down and his hands on his knees, and his condition did not appease Rex’s mood one bit. His knuckles were bruised in a way that Rex immediately recognized, and the boy’s face was littered with bruises and several small cuts. His clothes were ruffled and dirty, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened.

Now, most people would have started yelling as soon as they saw this, but Rex stopped himself from doing so and took a moment to take in Rallen’s behavior. The fact that Rallen was not looking at him was one thing; either he was scared of a rebuke, or he was sorry for whatever he had done.

He’d spoken with the principal on the phone, and apparently, Rallen hadn’t spoken to anyone after the incident, so they couldn’t take his statement, and it was, apparently, the word of 6 to 0 like this. Rex wanted to believe that Rallen hadn’t started this, wanted so desperately to believe it, but the bruises on Rallen’s fists did little to ease that, even with the bruises on his face.

Taking a steady breath, Rex walked over to where Rallen was sitting and crouched down to one knee like he had done that morning, though this time, Rallen’s position made him look up at the smaller boy. “…Rallen…” He had kind of expected that Rallen wouldn’t look up, so he wasn’t surprised when he didn’t move. “Rallen… hey… look at me…”

Rallen tensed briefly, before slowly raising his head to meet Rex’s gaze. The look in the boy’s eyes was closest to that of a whipped puppy with its tail between its legs. That alone raised his hopes that Rallen wasn’t fully responsible.

“I promise I won’t get mad…” Rex promised, though he feared it would be an empty promise because of his temper; the same one he knew Rallen had at times. “So tell me… what happened?”

Rallen started shaking then, another sign that the boy was afraid. He probably knew very well that Rex wouldn’t be able to keep his promise if he lost his temper, no matter how hard he tried. Rex wanted to try, though, and he wanted to try very hard. He disliked breaking promises, but in this matter, he might not be able to stop himself.

Reaching over, he placed a hand on Rallen’s, nearly making the boy pull back. “Hey… talk to me, Rallen… please…”

For a while, neither of the two spoke, or moved, but after what had to have been a small eternity, Rallen slowly moved his fingers around Rex’s thumb, perhaps as a small reassurance that Rex might not get angry after all. Rex didn’t mind, and just lightly squeezed Rallen’s hand for a moment. Rallen gulped a little, still shaking a bit, before he slowly opened his mouth.

“It… it wasn’t my fault…” Rallen managed to get out. “I… I was just… I just wanted to help her… th… those guys they… th-they threw… threw the first… punch…” It ended very small and pathetic, as if he realized how stupid his reason was, and he looked down, biting his lip.

Rex had managed to relax a bit when he understood that Rallen had merely retaliated in response to whoever had thrown the first punch. And if it had been 7 against 1, then Rex was surprised at how few injuries Rallen had.

…or…

Worry starting to eat at his mind, Rex moved his other hand and carefully poked one finger at Rallen’s ribs. Instantly, Rallen howled out and curled up, his entire frame shaking in agony. Rex winced painfully at that, realizing that his little brother might actually have a few bruised ribs, if not cracked.

His mind was made up before he really had a chance to stop and think it over, and in less than a minute, he had Rallen picked up, who yelped a little in surprise, before the kid was up on his shoulders and Rex was stalking toward the exit.

“R-Rex?” Rallen stammered, managing to hold onto Rex’s head securely, even with his bruised hands,

“Shut up,” Rex grumbled, trying to act like he was grumpy, but he could tell Rallen didn’t buy it one bit, since he slowly started to calm down. “Next time; try not to get hit if you’re trying to impress a girl.”

At that, Rallen gasped, and Rex could imagine his face going red. “I-I was not trying to impress her! I just wanted to help!!”

“Suuuuure ya did, Rallen. Suuuuure ya did.”

“I did!” Rallen argued, bopping Rex on his head, but Rex merely smiled a bit.

And just like that, it was like the whole thing never happened.

But Rex did make a note to talk to the parents of the boys who did this to Rallen. He’d pull out his badge if needed, but he was not going to stand for this.

 

They both knew that this would come eventually; Rex couldn’t stay at home forever, and even patrol missions could take a day or two, depending on the ship used. Rex’s ship was fast, but still not fast enough to complete his usual patrol within a day. But, Rex suspected, Rallen must’ve been dreading this day to come ever since their mother brought it up.

“Rallen…” Rex tried again, sighing softly as his brother refused to move from the doorway to let him pass. Normally, Rex would’ve attempted to push his way past, but that would only hurt Rallen’s feelings even more at this point.

“Don’t go!” Rallen begged, looking close to crying, though he was clearly trying to stop himself from doing so.

“Rallen… I don’t have much of a choice in the matter; I still have my duties as an NPP officer.”

“But…”

“Look, Rallen, as much as I want to stay, I can’t.” Walking over, Rex bent down to Rallen’s level. “I want to stay here with you and mom, Rallen, I really do, but if I don’t go, I fear that people might get hurt. I know I probably can’t help everyone, but I want to help those that I can.”

Rallen was absolutely silent.

“You have the same as I do, right? You wanted to help that girl, even though you knew you would get hurt in the process.” At Rallen’s wince, he knew he hit the right mark. “Just like that, I want to help people, even if it ends up hurting me.” Rallen looked down, biting his lip and trying not to cry. But just then, Rex reached over and ruffled his hair. “Now listen carefully; while I’m away, I want you to protect everyone close to you, okay? And that includes mom.”

Rallen blinked stupidly for a moment, before he smiled amidst his beginning tears. “O-okay! I’ll do that!”

Rex allowed a small smile at seeing his brother try so hard, but he knew that everything would be okay in the end. So, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a simple object. “Also… take this.”

Blinking, the small boy took it slowly. “What’s this?”

“I suppose you can call it a ‘journal’ of some kind, however, each entry you make can be sent to me. I have a similar one, and I can send similar messages to you. This way you can report to me how things are going here and vice versa. With this, we can still stay in touch even if we can’t see each other.”

For a moment, Rallen only stared at the little gizmo in his hands, and Rex feared he wasn’t breathing, but then Rallen looked up and promptly jumped Rex, hugging him tightly around his neck. Rex blinked once, before he smiled and returned the hug.

After some time, the duo finally broke apart, and Rex ruffled Rallen’s hair again. “Well, are you going to see me off?”

“Hmhmm! You bet!!”

“Good! Let’s go then!”


	2. Rallen

A loud, insistent beeping was what broke through first of all into Rallen’s mind, making him groan while struggling to stay asleep for a little longer. After about half a minute, though, his arm slithered out from under the blankets in search of the constant beeping, finding it relatively quickly and shutting it up with a flick of his finger across the switch on the back.

Giving another groan, Rallen pushed himself up and looked at the alarm clock with bleary eyes, blinking a few times. “Uuurrgh… what time is it…?”He had to actually squint to be able to look at the numbers, before he just sighed and tossed the blankets off of him. “Oh well, whatever. Time to get up I guess…”

And in less than a minute, Rallen stood next to his bed, cricking his right shoulder and rotating his joints a few times, hissing every time there was a resounding crack from them. “Ah… dang that stung,” he grumbled under his breath, before he let himself fall forward, catching his fall with his arms. “Right… no time like the present.”

With that said, Rallen lowered himself down until his nose nearly touched the ground, then pushed back up. He kept this up for at least 20 minutes before he decided that he’d had enough for now and got back to his feet. “Phew… alright enough of that for now.”

Moving over to his closet, he pulled out his uniform and a towel, before he moved to the adjoining washroom. As he got under the shower, he couldn’t help but feel like he’d forgotten something important, though for the life of him, he couldn’t think of what it could be. He spent a few minutes standing there trying to think about it, even as he washed his hair, keeping his head back so that the suds wouldn’t get in his eyes. Something inside of him kept telling him that it was important…

Shaking his head as he rinsed the suds out, he decided to leave it for now. If it was really important, he probably left a note on it somewhere, since he knew himself well enough to know he’d forget it. After drying off, he instead focused on finishing up in there. As he made to head back out, though, he paused and looked back at the mirror, blinking.

Rallen frowned a bit, then reached to the side of his face, wincing as he felt the slight stubble under his fingertips. “Ah dang it. Guess I gotta take care of that first.” He was just glad that he knew how to handle that, even if he had never needed to do it before. “Guess I’m getting old…” he joked to himself, pulling out the items he’d need… only to freeze up.

“…oh…”

He hadn’t even needed his own reminder; he’d remembered on his own for once.

Shaking the matter off, he tried to stay focused on the task at hand so he wouldn’t cut himself. That was the last thing he needed that morning. Thankfully, he didn’t cut himself, and, after moving his hand over his cheeks, he was glad to note that he had gotten all of the stubble.

Satisfied with that, Rallen headed out, hanging up his towel to dry as he went. Standing in his room, he put his hands on his hips for a minute, breathing out slowly as he got his thoughts in order. “Okay; 1st of, check the Incubator, 2nd, breakfast, 3rd, head out.”

Nodding to himself, Rallen then moved over to his desk. After their return from the fight against the Krawl, Jeena had installed their dorm’s desk with a remote access to the Incubator so they could check on the Spectrobes from there. It saved them some time so that they didn’t have to go back and forth between their ship all the time. It was a handy feature.

Typing in his username and password, Rallen wasn’t surprised when a reminder popped up first of all, telling him what he already knew. Moving it to the side, Rallen typed in the command to check the Incubator.

Most of the Spectrobes were still asleep, which he had expected. Even the Evolved Spectrobes were still fast asleep. Maybe that’s what happened when the Krawl threat dissipated, and how they ended up in fossils; they started getting lazy.

Smirking a bit, Rallen activated the mic. “Alright! Rise and shine, sleeping beauties!” he called out, making the Spectrobes blink awake with lazy snorts. “C’mon, up up up! No sense in getting lazy now things have quieted down a bit!” he chuckled out. “What if the Krawl pop up again when you’re all napping?”

That got the Evolved Spectrobes up, at least. The other Spectrobes were still feeling a little sleepy.

Rallen just let them for now, and started to type in the commands to drop a few minerals in for their breakfast (he’d have to go excavating if he had some time left today). At the prospect of breakfast, even the lazy Spectrobes got up very quickly. Rallen just laughed as they started eating. It was amazing how much the Spectrobes were like humans.

Shaking the matter off, he took a moment to look over the child Spectrobes. He preferred to switch every now and then so that the little ones wouldn’t feel neglected because they either didn’t have the range or the skill to find certain items. He usually made sure that he brought along someone who could be of use, but when he wasn’t feeling up to excavating, he just picked someone. Now was one of those days, to be honest, and he was having a bit of trouble choosing for once.

After a brief moment, Rallen finally decided on taking Komainu with him. The small red Spectrobe plopped onto his lap almost the instant he materialized, causing Rallen to chuckle as Komainu whined a bit for attention. Rallen didn’t really mind and just petted him over his head, making Komainu mewl in appreciation.

Once Komainu had had his share of attention and Rallen had made sure the other Spectrobes were fed, he set the child down and got up, heading for the door with Komainu right behind him. As he headed out, he wasn’t really surprised to not see anyone up yet. Not many people at NPP really stood up that early, except for those working the night shift. Even Jeena usually slept until 10, at the latest. And it was now… Rallen frowned and checked the time.

“7:35, huh?” he mumbled to himself, before shrugging. He was used to it, and he was sure that, even if he didn’t set his alarm, he wouldn’t be able to sleep in much. The latest he’d ever slept in was 7:50 in the morning.

Luckily, the cafeteria was open 24 hours a day, so he had his breakfast within 10 minutes, Komainu lying on his lap as he ate. The people working in the cafeteria didn’t even look up anymore at Rallen showing up so early; they were used to it.

As Rallen silently ate his cereal, he lightly petted Komainu, who was humming in contentment at the attention. However, Rallen’s thoughts were miles away from either breakfast or petting Komainu. The last few months seemed like a dream sometimes, starting from the point where they found Aldous to the point where they encountered the leader of the Krawl on Meido. As much as he sometimes acted like it, he had never really imagined himself to be any kind of ‘savior’ to people.

And now he had just jumped from a mere NPP officer to a Spectrobe Master in less time than it had taken him to become the first one. Fate had this really weird way of just throwing a person’s life around at times. Though it made him wonder why it had chosen him for it. Was there even a reason?

Shaking it off for the moment, Rallen finished his small breakfast and set Komainu on the floor before getting up to return his dishes so they could be washed. The place would be crowding with other officers soon, and Rallen would much rather just avoid the traffic in the halls. He wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone else at this point.

But of course, fate had other ideas. For when was walking down the halls, whom would he run into but his own partner?

Now, rather than pretend like he hadn’t noticed her like some would do if they were heading somewhere, Rallen put a grin on his face and waved. “Morning, Jeena!”

Jeena blinked and looked up, still a bit drowsy from he looks of it. “Huh… Rallen? Why’re you always up so early?” she yawned out.

“Why am I up so _early_? Why are you up so _late_?” Rallen countered.

“Hah, hah,” Jeena mumbled, giving another yawn behind her hand. Rallen only chuckled for a moment even as Komainu ran over to get some of the pink-haired girl’s attention. “So did you--” Pause to stretch and pet Komainu. “Did you have plans for today, Rallen?”

That was the question he’d been waiting for. “Well, actually, I need to head out for a bit to get some things. Won’t take long, so I’d been hoping to be back before you woke up.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he said with a small grin: “Guess I screwed up on that, though, huh?”

Jeena giggled. “You dolt…” she teased good-naturedly. “Well, get going if you’re in such a hurry then!”

“I’m going I’m going!” Rallen laughed as he started to run. “Komainu! C’mon!”

The child Spectrobe followed quickly with a small bark, even as Jeena laughed while they headed out. Rallen didn’t bother about that; he was pulling those kind of stunts to make Jeena laugh, anyway.

 

“Good day, how may I--Rallen! Rallen, good to see you, sonny!” the old lady behind the counter said with a jovial smile, making a few more wrinkles appear on her face. Rallen smiled back at her warmly. He’d known her for a long time already, and she liked to dote on him as though he were her grandson. Which he didn’t mind; he’d never known his biological grandparents to begin with, so this was not something he was going to pass up on.

And besides, it made her happy, too.

“Good morning, grams,” he said. He always called her that, and no one really seemed to mind much. “Sorry I haven’t been around for so long…”

“Oh don’t worry about it, honey; I may be old, but I heard the news too. You saved us all, this time!” Rallen blinked, then smiled when she walked out from behind the counter. “Now come here and give me a hug.”

Rallen nodded without a word of complaint and walked over, embracing the old lady as she hugged him back, making sure not to injure her in any way. He always feared nowadays that he would somehow hurt her; he wasn’t a little kid anymore, after all.

“My, you keep getting bigger every time I see you, don’t you?”

Rallen smiled crookedly, rubbing the back of his neck. He could still remember that only a scant few years ago he had to stand on his tiptoes to hug her. Now he towered over her by almost a foot and a half. He was starting to think that him ever being a child was nothing more than a fleeting dream.

Just then, there was a small whine coming from near the old lady’s legs, making her look down in surprise. “Hm? My, who’s this little cutie?”

“Komainu,” Rallen said as he reached down and picked up the child Spectrobe. “He’s a Spectrobe. He’s still a little guy, but once he’s all grown, he’ll be tough enough to counter any Krawl daring to come here.”

Komainu let out a short bark and the old lady laughed softly. “Oh, I see. Hard to believe that such a cutie will maybe save us again,” she said, petting Komainu over his head, making the Spectrobe purr in appreciation. Rallen smiled at the display, before he decided to just get on to business.

“Um, anyway, grams… I actually came for--”

“I know, honey,” she said before he could finish, and walked off to behind the counter, picking up something, which she then held out to Rallen as he walked over. “Here you go, hon.”

Rallen smiled and set Komainu down on the counter as he took the bundle from her. “Thanks grams,” he said sincerely even as he started reaching for his card to pay for it.

“Oh, forget about the money, hon.”

Rallen froze and looked up. “But…”

“Don’t be silly; you saved us all. I wouldn’t dare to ask you to pay for this after all you’ve done.”

For a moment, Rallen seemed ready to argue, but in the end, he only smiled gratefully. “Thank you, grams… I swear I’ll pay you back later.”

“Don’t worry about it, honey. Now, off with you.”

Rallen allowed a grin to spread, before he picked up Komainu again and headed out, waving as he went.

 

By the time he reached his destination, it was already 15 minutes to noon, and, as was usual, the place was quiet. Komainu was confused about why they were there, he could tell, but he wasn’t sure how he could explain it to the small Spectrobe.

Rallen moved across the large courtyard silently, with Komainu following close behind.

As he did, he felt the painful memories crawling to the surface of his mind. It had been so long ago, yet those memories would never truly fade away, as if they didn’t want him to forget it for whatever sick, twisted reason they had.

It had all started out so simple, really. Nothing about that day had been different from any other day. His clock had blared at him to get up, and he had gotten up just like any other day, did his exercises, washed up and headed down. Just as always, his mom already had breakfast ready, and she was waiting for him with a bright smile on her face.

Breakfast passed in relative silence, since neither really had much to tell. Afterwards, Rallen ran to get ready for school. He was aiming to become an NPP, just like his brother, after all. And to do that, he’d need at least passing grades.

The only problem was that he wasn’t much into memorizing every word he read. He could try all he want, but his memory would desert him in the end. Luckily, he’d learned a trick to be able to remember better, though understanding was still another matter. He just hoped he’d be able to make it with just his memory for now. At least until he could prove he was just as good as his brother, if not more so.

Which was going to be another roadblock he’d realized.

Up until then he’d always relied on his brother, and as such, hadn’t realized for how long he’d been standing in his brother’s shadow. Rex had warned him that he should learn to stand on his own before long, and that he would have to stop relying on the older man if he ever wanted to be a good NPP officer.

And with Rex no longer there, Rallen finally understood his words.

To become an NPP officer, he’d have to earn that right. Had to make a name for himself. He couldn’t always be known as “Rex’s little brother”.

The busdriver smiled at Rallen whenever he came on, and even if Rallen didn’t manage to hit the button for the bus to stop, he still stopped, knowing that it was the stop Rallen needed. It didn’t really bother him that much; since he didn’t want to miss school for whatever reason.

The kids at school didn’t bother him anymore, nor did anyone try to pick a fight when he was around. Though Rex’s words with the parents had helped, Rallen himself also held a rather authoritative figure. Rallen often played the fool when at school to make the others laugh, since he disliked the serious faces people always pulled.

However, everyone who attempted to hurt the others in any way possible was met with a very pissed Rallen.

School had been uneventful, too, and hadn’t betrayed how horribly wrong the day was going to end. Trip back, nothing new. Walking back home, again, nothing new.

His world had almost ended though when he opened the door to his own house…

Shaking the thought off, Rallen focused on the present, rather than the past, since his feet had instinctively carried him to his destination. Komainu cocked his head curiously, looking at the large piece of rock that jutted from the ground. For a moment, Rallen just remained standing, before he got down on his knees and placed the bundle of flowers the old lady had given him on the grave.

Now a lot of people would actually talk to the grave they were at, but Rallen was not one of those people. And even if he was, he wouldn’t have anything to say. What was he supposed to say, anyway?

There were times like this… when he just felt like this whole thing was his own fault somehow.

Maybe, if he had somehow gotten home earlier, his mother wouldn’t have been lying motionless on the sofa. She often tired out sooner than normal, he knew that, so she sometimes took a nap on the couch. But usually she was always up by the time that Rallen came home, and if she wasn’t, the door opening and closing would wake her up.

That time, she did not stir at all. Rallen had felt a ball of worry in his stomach, but had attempted to shake it off. He walked over to the sofa, watching his mother for any signs of her waking up. But she didn’t move at all.

“Mom…?” Rallen called out softly. “Mom… are you still sleeping?” Moving over, he lightly shook her by her shoulder. “Mom… wake up… it’s almost dinner time…” When that had no effect, he reached out with both hands and shook her a little harder, but again, it had no effect at all. “Mom…?”

The ball of worry began to grow into unease, and he couldn’t stop it this time. Rallen didn’t know how to wake his mother up, and he feared that something might be wrong, so he contacted the people who, hopefully, would know what to do, like Rex had told him. From the moment they came, Rallen felt little more but a bystander. He saw it all happening, but not understanding. When they brought his mother away, he had begun to panic, but there was nothing he could have done.

His mother had already been dead…

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Rallen tensed sharply at the voice, and slowly turned around, not having expected to see the person standing there at all. Least of all today.

“Commander Marks…?” he managed to get out even as Komainu turned to face the new arrival curiously.

“Rallen, do me a favor and look a little better. Do I look like I’m wearing uniform today?”

He blinked once, before he quickly looked the person over. Casual jeans, dark sneakers, a long-sleeved shirt with a long leather jacket, short hair with two longer locks hanging on the sides and the traditional eyepatch that everyone was used to by now. After a moment longer, he quipped: “No Ma’am.”

“Good,” the woman chuckled out. “So get with the program alright?”

“Sure thing, Liz,” Rallen quipped, giving the woman a grin.

However, Liz saw right through it. “It wasn’t your fault, Rallen.”

Again, Rallen tensed, and his expression fell, before he turned back to the grave silently. Liz said nothing more, and instead, placed a silent hand on his shoulder. Rallen didn’t mind and just held on to it with one hand, accepting the quiet comfort. Komainu, as if sensing Rallen’s emotions, moved over and pushed his way under Rallen’s free hand and onto his lap.

For a long time, they stayed like that, and Rallen once more felt his thoughts drifting. This was exactly how it had been that day. Only then, he’d been openly crying, even if he had tried his hardest not to. She had appeared by his side then, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, supporting him both physically and emotionally from the torment that caused his body to shake.

He felt so embarrassed now at how much he must’ve cried back then, and he’d sworn to himself that that would be the last time. Unfortunately, he’d been wrong on that one, but he had managed to keep that promise as best as humanly possible.

After that day, Liz had been the one to look after him, to prevent him from ending up in some random orphanage where no one either knew or cared about him. Everyone had come to the agreement that it had been the better choice at that time. And Rallen was still sure of that choice, as he would have never made it this far without her support. She didn’t even have to say anything; all he really needed was to know that she was there when he needed her and everything was all right, for a moment.

When Liz tugged on his shoulder, he responded almost immediately, carefully picking up Komainu in one hand as he climbed to his feet again. She didn’t say anything, only squeezed his shoulder lightly, then let go and started to walk. Rallen didn’t even bother and followed, keeping up pace right next to her, with Komainu snuggled up against his chest in his arm.

Neither spoke, nor did they look at each other as they walked. Rallen wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. They had known each other for so long, and yet there were times he found it hard to talk to her. He knew that she also had a fairly decent amount of hurt piled up in her chest somewhere, but refused to part with it. Rather, she kept it close to her at all times, for a reason he couldn’t explain. Perhaps it was just how she handled with her own turmoil, though he doubted it was a good thing.

 

“This is like… tradition, huh?” Rallen asked as he leaned back on the bench, absently popping the spoon in his mouth, allowing the ice cream on it to melt on his tongue.

“I suppose so,” Liz said plainly, not looking up from her own ice cream.

Rallen didn’t even question anymore how it had come to this; whether he had asked or if she had offered, but they always ended up on that small bench with a small tub of ice cream. Always the same flavors, too; Rallen with chocolate and caramel and Liz with strawberry and vanilla. It helped him calm down every time, and for that, he was grateful.

That, and the fact that neither mentioned the subject that brought them there once they had sat down.

“So… how does it feel to be a universal hero?” Liz quipped after a while.

Rallen chuckled a bit. “I dunno, really… I just keep suspecting I’m gonna wake up soon and everything will have been a dream, yanno?” Komainu yawned in his lap, then curled up contently, not seeming to mind that they weren’t going anywhere. “Of course, I can’t really do that when I have a Spectrobe on my lap, eh?”

Liz merely chuckled, shaking her head. “Obviously not. Honestly, when did you grow up, eh?”

Rallen blinked at her for a moment. “I grew up, then??”

At that, Liz actually laughed, and Rallen grinned. It wasn’t easy to make Liz laugh like that, but he’d managed with her, somehow. The only times she seemed truly at ease was when she was with him or Rex.

Popping his spoon in his mouth, Rallen glanced up to the heavens.

“…You think Rex’ll come home, soon?” he asked after a bit.

To that question, even Liz had no immediate response. She stared up as well, seeming to think. “…I can’t say…”

Neither dared to voice what many had already hinted at long ago, because both of them held faith in the fact that Rex would come back to them. When he had disappeared, Rallen had almost lost it, but Liz had said that she knew, without a doubt, that Rex wasn’t dead.

Rallen trusted her word and believed along with her, as two of the few, that Rex was still out there, somewhere. And also, none of Rallen’s “reports” had been returned to him, meaning that at least the reports were going through to Rex’s end. There were no replies, though, and it sometimes worried him, but he never let it bother him for long and just continued sending his reports.

Suddenly, Liz chuckled, making Rallen look up. “What? What’s so funny?”

“Nothing… I was just thinking… if Rex were to come back now, I think he’ll have to bear walking in _your_ shadow for once.”

“…huh?”

“Your brother’s a great NPP officer, I’ll admit… but not even _he_ can top being a Spectrobe Master, can he?”

Rallen chuckled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Um… I didn’t actually have the time to send him the full report… I mean, it’s been pretty hectic these past few weeks…”

“I had a feeling. Well, you have the time now, so maybe you should properly inform your brother.”

“Maybe… but… who’s to say he’ll believe me?”

“Even if he doesn’t, when he gets back, he’ll have to.”

“…Heh. Yeah…”

 

They walked back to NPP Headquarters together, though they went their separate ways when they reached the entrance. Liz was going to go to work as well, whereas Rallen was still off duty for the moment. He figured it was a good thing if he wanted to finish that report for Rex. He’d already started on it in between his duties, but hadn’t found the time to finish.

Now he had no excuses left, so he might as well finish it.

So, after dropping off Komainu with the other Spectrobes, Rallen finally continued with where he had left off, scrolling past the first paragraph.

 

_Hey Rex!_

_You’re not gonna believe what I’m gonna tell you now. You sitting down? You better! It all started on a standard patrol mission with Jeena…_

 

It took him nearly an hour to recount the entire thing, and he even removed several minor details, trying to stay on the main subject. He also didn’t mention their still ongoing search for the Geos. That was optional at this point, anyway.

 

_…We somehow made it through the fight, relatively unscathed. Sure, we got hit a few times, but that freak didn’t have that much variation in his attacks so once we’d seen them all, it was easy to avoid. Still, he was a pain and a half._

_Thankfully, we managed to destroy him, after which the rest of the Krawl dispersed. It took us all a lot of effort, but we made it and Nanairo is still in one piece. So you won’t have to worry about coming back to nothing, bro!_

 

Rallen looked the whole thing over, and was about to enter his standard report end, when he paused. Liz’s silent words to his question seemed to echo in his mind and he felt his chest tighten.  He still didn’t doubt that Rex was alive, but this nagging feeling in his mind that he might not come back, despite being alive… it wouldn’t leave him alone.

So, rather than end the report there, he continued typing.

 

_Hey, Rex? Are you coming home soon? I really miss you, you know? And Liz misses you too… Hell, she needs her partner right now, now that she’s been rendered half-blind and all. She might not say it out loud, but I can tell there was something between you two besides a close partnership._

_So, please, if not for me, at least for Liz. I fear that, if this keeps up, her sorrow might gobble her up from the inside. She needs you… as do I. So… please, Rex…_

_Please…_

 

Rallen took a deep breath, forcing himself to steady as he felt his hands shaking. He had to finish. Had to before he couldn’t bring himself to. “No… no no no… I’m… I’m not going to…” he mumbled, reaching up briefly to rub fiercely at his eyes. “Keep going, Rallen… don’t stop now; keep going. Just… just keep going…”

But even as he said that, as he typed the last few words, red-hot tears started to trickle down his cheeks.

 

_Please come home…_

_-Rallen_

 

He could barely lift his fingers to hit the “send” button, as he sniffled and struggled to push his tears back. “Stop it, Rallen… stop it already…” But the intensity of the situation finally hit him dead-on and he couldn’t stop himself; he sobbed into his hands, his body quaking as his chest tightened enough so that it actually hurt physically. “Stop… stop it…” he chastised himself. “Stop crying… stop…”

Suddenly, there was a knock on his door and he snapped up in surprise. “H-huh… whuh…?”

“Rallen? You in?”

Jeena…

“Ye… yeah. What’s up, Jeena?”

“Aldous was looking for you. Said he had something to tell you.”

Rallen blinked slowly, before he quickly reached up and wiped his tears away, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. “Alright. I’ll go see him in a bit; I still want to finish something real fast.”

“Okay. Don’t make him wait too long, alright?”

“No problem, Jeena!”

He heard Jeena walking away, and he sighed in relief. “Aldous… that’s… that’s good. I… I need the distraction. Yeah…”

Taking another steady breath, Rallen stood up, wiped the remainder of his tears away and decided to go.


	3. Jeena

Something was definitely off today, Jeena could tell. Maybe it had been off all day, but she had been too groggy that morning to see if it had been. She wasn’t sure what had happened to Rallen that made him act different from his usual cocky, cheerful self. Okay, she hadn’t known him for that long (nearly half a year now, actually) but she knew that this wasn’t normal “Rallen-behavior”.

Stepping back into her own dorm room, she walked further inside, avoiding several boxes as she went to get to her desk. Now Jeena was not a messy kind of person, but she just hadn’t had the time to unpack properly, and the stuff she had unpacked had been put in places where most people would lose track of it later. Before graduating from NPP and becoming Rallen’s partner, she had still lived with her parents, so she had an excuse to be living out of boxes.

As Jeena sat down on her bed, she noticed something. There was a picture next to her workstation that showed a group of people, including herself, all of them smiling at the camera. But the scene no longer brought a smile to Jeena’s face as it might have in the past. All the others on the picture had been some of her old classmates with whom she’d spent most of her time at the academy. After they graduated and she became Rallen’s partner, they had started to grow apart until Jeena could barely remember their names.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried, mind you; it was the fact that _they_ hadn’t tried.

Shaking it off quickly, she snagged the picture and dumped it in the trash next to the desk. Thinking for a moment, Jeena finally stood and walked over to a box labeled “Pictures” and started fishing around. She knew it was probably near the top unless her earlier fishing had pushed it down.

“There you are!” she whooped and pulled out another picture. This one was of her and Rallen not long after they had become partners. It had been made without their knowledge, but they had both gotten a copy when it had been done. In the picture, they had been working on their ship, with Jeena standing on Rallen’s shoulders so she could reach the wing. She’d insisted on getting a ladder, but sadly, all of them had been in use. And Rallen, being Rallen, had hoisted her up to his shoulders almost easily, which allowed her to reach the wing just as easily.

She was still surprised at Rallen’s strength, even more so back then. He wasn’t wearing his jacket or gauntlets in the picture, so it was easy to see that he was muscular.

Jeena giggled a bit at the memory and went back to her desk and set up the picture in a spot where no one would miss it, flicking some imaginary dust particles off the frame. However, rather than go to work, she found herself staring at the picture for a while longer, and recalled her first actual meeting with Rallen.

She had just graduated from the academy and, like everyone else, she had been called to Commander Marks’ office to review her grade card and to be assigned her first partner. She’d never actually met the Commander before then, so she’d been a little surprised when the Commander turned out to be a woman. Not just that, but she had a large triangular eyepatch that covered her left eye and a good section of her face. She had light blonde hair that almost shone white in the light, and though she had two locks of hair hanging next to her face, the rest of her hair was short.

Commander Marks looked up silently as she entered, then stood up from her seat. “You’re Jeena, correct?”

“Y-yes Ma’am,” Jeena managed to get out. She’d never been so nervous in her life, not even when she graduated.

“Good. Have a seat then,” she said, gesturing to the chair in front of the desk. Jeena obliged quickly and plopped down, even as Marks sat back down as well. Jeena fiddled with her hands in her lap as the older woman pulled out Jeena’s grade card. She wasn’t ashamed of it, but she just hoped that it was enough to join the NPP. Sure, she was smart enough, but she’d barely, just barely, passed the combat simulator.

She was a bit surprised when Commander Marks suddenly chuckled. “Um… is… is something wrong?” Jeena dared to ask finally.

“Hm? Oh, no. Nothing really. Just… I recall a certain NPP officer who passed with a grade card almost the exact opposite of your own. …In fact, entirely opposite if I’m correct.”

Jeena blinked, twice, before she thought for a moment. If they were exact opposites, it would mean that, while that person barely passed with everything but combat, then maybe, they would be able to even each other out. At least, that was how she assumed that would work; she could be the brains, and whoever that person was could be the brawn. Or something like that. Still…

“But… why let him pass with such grades?” she asked slowly. Marks glanced her way solemnly and Jeena winced, ducking her head down. “I-I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have--”

“It’s not the fact that he couldn’t learn what was taught,” Marks interrupted, making Jeena look up curiously. “It’s just the fact that it bores him to death, and as such, he makes only a minimal effort to learn it. Simple as that.”

“Oh…” Well that was a relief; at least she wouldn’t have to deal with a brainless brute if she got paired up with this person. “…So… is… he going to be my partner?”

“I’m afraid he already has a partner.” Ouch. That kinda hurt.

She had actually been looking forward to meeting that person, if he was so powerful that he could make due for his bad grades in everything else. But she supposed it was just how life went sometimes.

Marks was about to say something else, when there was a beeping that came from her computer. She groaned and asked Jeena to hold on for a moment before rolling her chair over so she could work on the computer and typed rapidly.

After several seconds of pause, Marks blinked once, before turning back to Jeena. “Correction; he _had_ a partner. Seems they couldn’t get along well enough and drove each other nuts.”

Jeena stared for a moment, before a small ray of hope lit up in her chest. “I… I see…”

Marks seemed to catch on to that and merely chuckled, typing something real quick and pulling out a card that popped out a moment later, holding it out to Jeena. “Here you go.” Jeena took the card a bit hesitantly and looked down at it, almost trembling at seeing the familiar NPP logo on it. “If you head over to the docks, you should be able to catch him. My guess is his ship took the brunt of his last ‘partnership’, so if you hurry…”

“O-Okay!” Getting to her feet, she bowed quickly. “Thank you very much!” she quipped before running to the door.

“Jeena!”

She paused with her hand above the button that opened the door, looking back sheepishly. “Um… ye-yes Ma’am?”

Marks, however, merely smiled. “Your partner’s name is Rallen. You can’t miss him.”

Though not sure what she meant, Jeena nodded politely. “Alright. Thank you!”

Locating the docks almost felt like a short eternity, but, finally, she used her newly acquired pass to get in, scanning her fingerprints so that it would recognize her for next time. Once there, she realized that it might not be as easy as she first thought; there were a lot more ships than she’d bargained for, and several of them appeared to be undergoing maintenance.

Jeena sighed briefly. She had a feeling that by the time she found Rallen’s ship, he’d already be gone. She almost wanted to head back, but just then, she heard something clang, not even that far away. Turning to the noise, she blinked in surprise. She’d figured that all mechanics in the docks were eating lunch somewhere at this time of day, so who…

Her body didn’t even wait for her mind to finish and she found herself running over, and soon enough she picked up someone grumbling rather loudly, which was followed by another loud clang before Jeena found the ship that the noise was coming from.

At first glance, it didn’t seem any different from the others. The only thing she _could_ tell, was that someone was working on it. For a moment, she debated on just leaving the person be, but just as quickly, she shook it off. Steeling her nerves, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm herself, before looking over to the left wing. “Hello up there!” she finally called out.

Silence followed the call, before she heard someone scuffling over the wing and a young man peeked over the side of the wing, leaning on his arms and looking down curiously, a mass of orange hair topping his still young-looking face. He blinked a few times, obviously as surprised as she was at seeing someone in the docks at this hour, before a grin spread over his face. “Yo! You’re new here, huh?” he asked, moving down to lean on his elbows.

“Hmhmm,” Jeena confirmed with a nod. “How’d you know?”

“Never seen you here before, so I just figured,” he quipped, shrugging his shoulders with a sly little smile on his face.

Jeena giggled. “Makes sense. You busy?”

“Kinda… I wanna get this thing done ASAP. Patrol cruisers aren’t meant to be sitting around in the docks, right?”

“Hmm… I guess so.” Looking around for a moment, Jeena finally asked: “You working on your own?”

“Yeah. I had a light lunch earlier, so I’m good.”

“I see…” Jeena considered her options for a bit. She could just leave, or she could stay here and wait until she figured out where to find Rallen, and in the meantime, help out on the ship (if the guy would let her). She had enough knowledge about cruisers to be able to fix one, so that shouldn’t be a problem. “Need a hand?”

For a moment, he blinked curiously, before he grinned. “Sure. Think you can come up?”

Jeena looked around once more, this time searching for a ladder of some kind. “Um… I don’t see any ladders,” she confessed after a while.

“Oh…” He didn’t seem to really care about the ladder, and she tried not to frown as he shrugged. “Oh well. Who needs ladders?”

Before she could say anything, though, he suddenly flipped over onto his back and pushed off against the wing while he snagged onto the edge with both hands. The result of that was that his knees hooked around the edge as he let go of the wing and dropped down. Jeena blinked strangely up at him, even as he grinned down at her and held out his arms. “Come on. I’ll pull ya up.”

“Um… okay…” She had a bit of doubt, but rather than decline and look for a ladder, she reached out and took hold of his hands, though he shifted his grip to her wrists for some better leverage. Before Jeena could start to regret her decision, she found herself being pulled up with little trouble, making her yelp in surprise.

“Okay, let go with your right hand and grab the edge, then bend your right knee so I can push ya up!” the man said, not sounding strained in the least.

Jeena nodded and slowly let go, reaching out and getting a good grip on the edge of the wing even as she brought up her knee. As she did, the guy put his now free hand under the knee and hoisted her upwards, which gave her the chance to climb on. She was surprised at how easy that had been, and was even more surprised when the guy managed to get back on the wing with no help whatsoever.

Rather than seem bothered by it, he merely grinned widely at her. “See? What’d I tell ya?”

Jeena couldn’t help herself and laughed.

It had taken them at least 5 minutes before they had both calmed down enough to get to work on the wing. She’d been surprised at how little he knew about the actual tools he was using. Sure, he knew what they were for and how to use them, but he seemed to care little about the actual tool names. It wasn’t that important, she figured, but it was still a bit strange to have him ask for a tool based on either its purpose or shape.

Finally, they were done with fine-tuning the wing, and were lying on their back on the wing to take a break, both of them satisfied with the results. After some time, though, Jeena sighed.

“Hm? Something wrong?” he asked curiously, but also with a hint of worry in his voice.

“I almost forgot why I’m here… I was supposed to look for my new partner, but I got sidetracked instead,” Jeena confessed. Quickly, as if realizing that might’ve sounded wrong, she hurried to explain: “I mean, it’s not like it wasn’t fun, but…” Sigh. “I just completely forgot.”

“Dun worry ‘bout it. It happens. And besides, who said your partner’d be here at this time of day anyway? Most officers should be at the cafe, anyway,” the guy said, not really sounding that angry.

Smiling a bit, Jeena confessed: “Commander Marks did.”

At that, the guy blinked, twice, before he asked: “She did…?”

“Hmhmm.”

“…I see… so, any idea who your partner is?”

“Yeah. His name’s Rallen. You know him?” Jeena asked hopefully as she turned to face him.

For a moment, the guy said nothing, before he nodded with a lopsided smirk. “Yep.” And then his smirk turned into a goofy grin. “You’re looking at him.”

Jeena giggled as she remembered that. She’d been surprised, sure, but now, all those months later, it only made her laugh. It was just so typically Rallen.

After a moment, she shook her head and sat back, deciding it was high time to get some work done.

 

By the time she was done, it was almost time for dinner. Stretching, she finally stood and rubbed her neck.

“Might as well get something to eat… wonder if Rallen’s back from meeting with Aldous…”

With that, she finally headed out of her room, deciding to head toward the cafeteria. If Rallen was done, he’d go that way eventually; that guy had like an internal clock that always told him when it was time to eat, much like how cats and dogs did.

Smiling at the comparison with Rallen and some sort of pet, she started down the hallway, humming a little to herself. However, she was halfway down the hall when she noticed Rallen coming from a little further up the hall apparently heading the same way. Jeena smiled and raised her hand, opening her mouth to call out.

“Rallen.” Jeena froze when another voice called out to her partner, making him turn in surprise, before a grin spread over his face as Commander Marks approached.

“Yo, Commander! What’s up?” Rallen quipped.

“I would appreciate you not being so informal all the time, Rallen,” Marks said simply.

“If you say so, Ma’am,” Rallen chuckled out, and Marks shook her head with a small chuckle.

“You’re impossible…” she mumbled, before she turned serious. “How are you feeling?”

Jeena was expecting something like “Never been better!” or something similar, but she wasn’t prepared for the long pause and Rallen’s expression falling for a brief instant. It took a while before Rallen spoke. “Better. A little, but… better. Thank you.” Rallen took a deep breath, holding it for a moment, and letting it go finally. “What about yourself?”

“I’ll live, Rallen. It’s you I’m worried about.”

Rallen gave her a tiny smile. “Really, I’m fine. Honest. That’s another one I owe you, Liz.”

Jeena felt as though she’d been stabbed in her chest. Seeing Rallen open up to the Commander so easily caused a flood of emotions to overwhelm her to such an extent that she was almost choking on air. It was something she couldn’t explain, but it hurt. But she found herself thinking ‘Why her? Why not me?’

“Forget it already. If you keep owing me at this rate you’ll never be able to repay it.”

There went that stab again, little bit more to the left this time.

“I know I know… sorry,” Rallen chuckled, rubbing his neck. “I’ll think of something someday.”

“You always say that, you goof.”

Jeena wasn’t sure what kind of sound she made at that point, but whatever it had been, it caused them to whip around to face her. Rallen blinked a bit in surprise, clearly not having expected her to be standing there.

“Jeena? You okay? You--”

But before Rallen could finish his question, Jeena turned on her heel and ran. She didn’t even understand why, but she just ran. She heard Rallen shout for her to stop as he began to run after her, but her legs refused to stop and she just kept on running…

 

By the time she finally managed to stop, she had to be at least a good mile away from NPP Headquarters, and that kind of worried her. She had a lousy condition, she knew, so how had she managed to get so far so fast? Not to mention, how did she outrun Rallen?

Taking a breath to steady herself, she leaned back against a wall, thinking.

Why did she get so upset? She didn’t even understand herself, and she was willing to bet that she made Rallen worry about her by running like that.

“I’m such an idiot…” Jeena mumbled softly to herself, bumping her head against the wall. It wasn’t like her to just run like that, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. Another something that wasn’t like her, but she figured there was no helping it now.

Maybe it was time to head back…

Moving her hair out of her eyes with a small sigh, she pushed off from the wall and started walking back the way she’d come silently. She hoped she’d run into Rallen on the way though; it was getting dark out, and she didn’t like walking the streets at night alone.

Suddenly, as she was passing a nearby park, she heard someone cough, harshly, making her pause and turn around. Jeena immediately noticed a man, crouching on the ground, gripping his chest as he coughed. Being the NPP officer she was, Jeena walked over with every intent to help him. “Hey, are you okay? Are you hurt?” she asked politely.

“My… my chest… started to hurt suddenly…” the man choked out. “Could… you help me to… that bench over there?”

Jeena nodded quickly and moved over, helping the man to his feet and starting to move toward the bench he’d just pointed out. “Should I call an ambulance?” she asked as they reached the bench. “Maybe you should lie down first…”

“No, you lie down.”

Jeena blinked in slight surprise, about to ask what he meant, but her entire body froze when she noticed that he was holding a knife in his free hand. Before she even had the chance to think about it, she found herself shoved onto the bench with the guy’s hand over her mouth, preventing her from screaming out.

“Don’t you dare scream or fight back. If you get on my nerves, I’ll kill you!”

She desperately wanted to fight back, anything was better than this… but the reality of the situation was that she was scared out of her mind. She couldn’t think clearly enough to make her body move as she wanted it to. Before she even knew it, she felt her own tears starting to trickle down from her eyes as panic rushed over and consumed her within the time it took one to blink.

And all she could do was pray.

_Someone… anyone… please… help me!!_

“Now why would you do that…” someone’s voice suddenly filtered into her panic stricken mind, causing her eyes to fly open (when had she closed them?), “To Jeena?”

When she realized who it was, her panic subsided and relief flooded her eyes.

It was Rallen.

At some point, he’d come up behind the guy, snagging onto the guy’s wrist of the hand holding the knife and pulling it away from Jeena. And the streetlight behind him made the extremely pissed off look on his face look that much more menacing.

“Wh-who the hell are y--” The guy wasn’t even allowed to finish before Rallen’s fist smashed into his face with such force that Jeena thought he’d broken his nose. The force of the punch sent him off of her, since Rallen had released his wrist at the last second.

Jeena quickly scooted back on the bench, panting for breath as Rallen walked around the bench so that he stood in between her and the assailant. “Y-you son of a bitch!” the guy managed to get out, blood dripping from his smushed nose.

Yep. Definitely broken.

But just then, the guy rushed for Rallen with his knife still in hand. For an instant, panic resurfaced. “Rallen, look out!!”

The warning hadn’t been necessary, because Rallen stepped to the side, reaching out and snagging the guy’s sleeve. Before he had even realized that Rallen had moved, Rallen’s fist struck his jaw. Jeena could only stare as the guy hit the ground and stirred no more.

Silence followed for a long moment, before Rallen finally moved again and moved over to Jeena. “Jeena, are you okay?” he asked, worry written all over his face as he held out his hand to her. For a long moment, she wasn’t sure what to say or do, but in the end, she accepted his hand and let him tug her up from the bench lightly.

However, as he did, she stumbled forward, her legs still shaking from what had just happened. Thankfully, Rallen was there to keep her from hitting the ground. For a moment, she just stood there, shaking slightly still, trying to keep a straight face in front of her partner, despite that he probably knew that it was just an act. She gulped down whatever was blocking her throat, trying to speak, but she couldn’t find the strength to do so.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she tried to focus on speaking, but her pounding heart and the remainder of her panic were not allowing it. So, rather than attempt to stand on her own, she clung to Rallen as best as she could, grateful when he didn’t push her away and instead held her close. Jeena wasn’t even aware that she was crying until her head found its way to his shoulder and she sobbed quietly.

And Rallen made no words of complaint at all, shushing her quietly as he put a hand on her head, his other hand rubbing her back in soothing circles.

“…Ra…Rallen…” Sniffle. “Tha…thank you…”

“Anytime, Jeena… Anytime…”

 

How they got back to NPP Headquarters, Jeena wasn’t too sure. She couldn’t really recall the walk back. She just remembered Rallen keeping her close, his heartbeat pounding steadily under her ear. She was like half-asleep, relying on Rallen to get her home safe.

“Jeena… hey, Jeena…” She whined as Rallen shook her lightly by her shoulder. “Ya gotta open the door, Jeen.”

“Mm… kay…” She entered the code needed to open her door, not really needing to see to enter it. She could do that blind if needed.

Rallen got them into the room with some difficulty, due to the boxes she still had scattered around. He didn’t say anything about it, but she could tell he was at least a bit surprised, even when she was barely awake at that point. All the stress from the last hour had caught up to her, and even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t keep her eyes open for long.

 

“Jeena… esh… Jeena, come on, wake up!” She whined when she felt Rallen shaking her by her shoulder. She’d just been sleeping so comfy. “Come on, I know ya wanna sleep, but I got us some dinner. Ya gotta eat, too, right?”

Jeena groaned. She really didn’t want to get up, but dinner sounded _really_ tempting right now. She’d skipped lunch to finish work. Hissing, she sat up, realizing she’d been sleeping on the sofa. Rubbing at her eyes, she yawned for a bit.

“Evening sunshine!” Rallen quipped with a grin. It took her half-asleep mind a moment to realize that Rallen wasn’t wearing either his jacket or his gauntlets and boots. This left him in only the sleeveless jumpsuit he wore under it. “You stay here and I’ll be right back!” he said and headed in the direction of the kitchen.

Jeena didn’t really mind and sat up, stretching for a brief moment as she woke up fully…

And for a moment she thought she was in someone else’s room.

Every single box that had been standing in the room had gone, and all her things had been put aside. Her books were in the bookcase off to her left, sorted on alphabet by the looks of it. The pictures she had brought with her were scattered around the room in places where they could easily be seen, yet were well out of immediate range so they wouldn’t be knocked over. The coffee table she had bought but hadn’t had the chance to put up stood in front of her, and her mother’s old vase stood on it, though it was empty at the moment.

When had all that happened?

Just then, though, Rallen walked in, carrying two plates in his hands, holding out one to Jeena. Nodding briefly, she took the plate, a bit surprised to see that it was spaghetti. Rallen had mentioned he wasn’t the best cook in the world, which was why she usually cooked, but this didn’t look like something he had just heated up.

Rallen just gave her a grin as he plopped down next to her, and started to eat. Jeena hesitated for a moment, before she took a small bite.

“…this is pretty good,” she said after a moment.

Rallen blinked, before he chuckled. “Yeah, well… didn’t seem that hard to make, so…”

“Wha… wait… this is the first time you did this!?” Jeena stared at Rallen in surprise.

Rallen chuckled a bit sheepishly. “Um… yeah, pretty much.” When Jeena looked at Rallen in obvious disbelief, Rallen shrugged a bit. “Well, Rex always said I…”

Almost instantly, though, Rallen snapped his jaw shut. Jeena blinked curiously. “Rex?” she asked, as Rallen turned away and looked down at his own spaghetti. “Rallen… who’s Rex?”

For a long moment, Rallen didn’t move at all. Jeena was about to ask again, but…

“…my brother…”

Jeena’s eyes widened for a bit. “Your… brother? I didn’t know you…”

“I’d rather… not talk about it…”

Jeena just looked at Rallen for a brief moment. Any other person would have dropped the subject. But…

Reaching over, she lightly touched his arm, feeling him tense under her fingers. She didn’t say anything, waiting to see what Rallen would do. But he didn’t do anything. He just remained silent and didn’t move to remove her hand.

“Rallen… did something happen to him?” she asked softly.

He didn’t say anything for a long time, but finally, he sighed and closed his eyes. “…I don’t know.”

Jeena blinked curiously, but didn’t speak.

“…he… disappeared…” Jeena just managed to stop her gasp. “…it was a simple patrol mission… but… there was a system glitch with the cruiser… Liz… Um… Commander Marks… managed to make it to Genshi in an escape pod… but…”

“…Commander Marks was there??”

“Yeah… she was his partner back then…”

“Oh…”

Well that explained why Rallen and her were so close; if the Commander used to be his brother’s partner, then surely they’d have met at one point.

She shifted her hand from his forearm to his hand, resting hers lightly on top of it. She could understand this was probably hard on him, especially if he and his brother were close. Which, judging by his reactions, they had been.

As much as she wanted to know about Rex, though, she figured there was always next time.

“Okay… anyway, what say we eat before it grows stale, huh?”

Rallen blinked, looking over to Jeena for a moment, a bit confused, before he smiled in gratitude. “Yeah, okay.” Jeena merely smiled back.

 

“On a sidenote, Rallen… what’d you do to this place?” Jeena asked with a small chuckle once they had finished eating and washing the plates (which were also put aside in the cupboards in the kitchen). It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate it, but if there was one thing she hadn’t expected from Rallen it was that he could actually clean up a room so easily.

Rallen blinked, before he chuckled. “I cleaned up. So?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it, Rallen!” Jeena scolded, though it didn’t sound as reprimanding as it should’ve with her chuckling like that. Rallen grinned at her laughing, and she shook her head softly at his almost childish (but typically Rallen) behavior.

After a bit, though, Rallen shrugged a bit. “Rex had a thing about ‘tidiness’, and I guess I picked up on that.”

“Aha. That explains that.”

Rallen looked ready to say something else, but before it could leave his mouth…

_KRACKA-BOOM!_

Both Rallen and Jeena yelped in surprise at the sudden thunderclap. “Whoa… that one came out of nowhere,” Rallen quipped, moving to the window and looking outside. “Huh… okay, thunderstorm… pleasant.”

Jeena didn’t exactly hear much of what he was saying, though. She was shaking badly, one hand over her heart as it pounded in her ribcage. With Rallen looking out of the window, it was easy to get her body back under control, calming down at least a bit. Not that it mattered, since in the next second, another thunderclap ripped through the air, making her jump again.

“Esh. It’s not letting up, is it?” Rallen asked as he turned back to face Jeena. As he looked at her, though, he blinked. “Hey… Jeena, you okay?”

“Eh? I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” Jeena asked, a tad nervously.

“…You sure?” he asked as he walked over. “You look a bit pale.”

“Really, Rallen, I’m fi--”

_KRACKA-BOOM!_

“KYAAAH!!” Instinctively, Jeena latched onto the closest object in range (a.k.a. Rallen) and hung on for dear life as the echoes of the recent thunderclap began to fade. But even then, Jeena didn’t let go from the deathgrip she had on her partner, her eyes shut tight and her face buried in Rallen’s chest, shaking badly.

She’d always had a horrible fear of thunderstorms, and she didn’t even remember why. All she knew was that they scared her like hell itself, no matter how hard she tried to tell herself that it wasn’t anything to be scared off as long as she staid indoors. She couldn’t count the amount of times she’d shot up in the middle of the night when a thunderstorm had rolled in. All of her previous roommates had always told her to knock it off and go back to sleep.

Until then, she’d done a good job at hiding it from Rallen. But now…

She could _just_ imagine the teasing grin on his face as he, like everyone else, said that it was ‘just a thunderstorm’ or something like that.

…

But it never happened.

In fact, now that she had managed to calm slightly, she realized that Rallen’s arms had moved to hold her close rather than push her off. There was no joking grin, no words to say that she was overreacting, nothing to indicate he was making fun of her like so many others.

She didn’t question it, though, and instead, just clung to him tighter as another bolt of lightning struck, closely followed by the thunder, almost making her whine as she shook in Rallen’s arms, tears slowly streaming down her cheeks.

For a long time, neither of the two moved, nor spoke a word. Jeena was way too afraid to utter a single syllable and even if she had been able to calm, she’d still not be able to say anything to Rallen. Not in their current state, at least.

…and then Rallen’s voice suddenly reached out to her through her panic-clouded mind and Jeena blinked slowly, barely believing what she was hearing;

Rallen… was singing…

“… _Little child_  
_Be not afraid_  
 _The rain pounds harsh against the glass_  
 _Like an unwanted stranger_  
 _There is no danger_  
 _I am here tonight…_

_Little child_   
_Be not afraid_   
_Though thunder explodes_   
_And lightning flash_   
_Illuminates your tearstained face_   
_I am here tonight…_

_And someday you’ll know_  
 _That nature is so_  
 _This same rain that draws you near me_  
 _Falls on rivers and land_  
 _On forests and sand_  
 _Makes the beautiful world that you see_  
 _In the morning…_ ”

Jeena would have never expected Rallen to ever sing, least of all to her. Not just that, but he was good at it, too. She found herself calming down slowly, even as the thunderstorm raged on outside. She didn’t hear it anymore; all she could hear was Rallen’s voice wafting into her ears, her eyes sliding closed on their own accord.

“ _Little child_  
 _Be not afraid_  
 _The storm clouds mask your beloved moon_  
 _And its candlelight beams_  
 _Still keep pleasant dreams_  
 _I am here tonight…_

_Little child_   
_Be not afraid_   
_The wind makes creatures of our trees_   
_And the branches to hands_   
_They’re not real, understand_   
_And I am here tonight…_

_And someday you’ll know_  
 _That nature is so_  
 _This same rain that draws you near me_  
 _Falls on rivers and land_  
 _On forests and sand_  
 _Makes the beautiful world that you see_  
 _In the morning…_ ”

As she began to lose the strength to stay on her feet, she felt Rallen bend down, one of his arms moving away from her back. She made a soft sound of complaint at that, until his now free arm slipped under her knees and Rallen stood back up, holding her up in his arms quite easily.

She felt the world move then, just slightly, but she was feeling too lazy to open her eyes now, so she just curled up further into Rallen.

“ _For you know, once even_  
 _I was a little child_  
 _And I was afraid_  
 _But a gentle someone always came_  
 _To dry all my tears_  
 _Trade sweet sleep the fears_  
 _And to give a kiss goodnight…_ ”

As those words were sung, Jeena felt herself being lowered down onto her bed, but Rallen’s hand still kept a gentle grip on hers, his other hand moving some of her hair out of her face.

“ _Well, now I am grown_  
 _And these days have shown_  
 _The rain’s a part of how life goes_  
 _But it’s dark and it’s late_  
 _So I’ll hold you and wait_  
 _‘til your frightened eyes do close…_

_And I hope that you’ll know_   
_That nature is so_   
_This same rain that draws you near me_   
_Falls on rivers and land_   
_On forests and sand_   
_Makes the beautiful world that you see_   
_In the morning…_

_Everything’s fine in the morning_  
 _The rain will be gone in the morning_  
 _But I’ll still be here in the morning…_ ”

There was a gentle touch on her forehead then, and, despite the single, final clap of thunder, Jeena drifted off into sleep with a small smile playing on her face.


	4. Liz

“Rain, rain, go away… Come back another day…” Liz mumbled as she stared out of her window. She didn’t hate the rain, in fact, there’d been a time when she had loved it, but now… it just brought back bad memories she would rather forget. Staring at her reflection in the glass for a moment, longer, she finally shut the blinds and headed for her closet as she pulled off her uniform.

“Hope Rallen found Jeena before the storm broke loose…” she mumbled to herself as she rubbed her shoulder a bit, hissing as she accidentally pulled on a bit of skin, though she still smiled a bit.

She was glad she’d assigned Jeena to be Rallen’s partner. Had she left that job to Grant, he would’ve just paired Rallen up with another stuck-up higher-ranked NPP officer. It was like he hadn’t learned from Rex at all in the fact that he and Rallen did _not_ enjoy being bossed around or looked down upon. That was one of the things that the duo had always had in common.

It was worth getting chewed out by the old man to see Rallen and Jeena working together like a team. And in the end, even Grant had acknowledged that they made a good team, which meant he ended up apologizing to Liz for blowing up on her.

Not that she’d wanted his apology, though. She wasn’t in this business to simply state a point in that she knew what was best (even though half the time that was exactly how it was). She was still there because she _wanted_ to be. Sure, as an actual officer, she wasn’t much use anymore with only one eye, but that didn’t mean she didn’t pull her weight around the base. Sometimes, even more so than others.

Liz silently removed her eyepatch and moved her fingers over the skin, hissing as she passed a few sensitive spots, before tracing around her eye. The skin there had been burnt to such a degree that she couldn’t even open it any more. And even if she could’ve, her eye would’ve been useless either way. Most of her left side was the same, and while she was lucky enough to be alive, it always felt like an empty victory to her.

Shaking the thought off, she solemnly pulled on her nightclothes and headed for her bed. However, halfway, she stopped at one of her bookcases, though the center plank was filled with framed pictures rather than books. For some reason, she always found herself pausing to look at those few pictures.

The one that stood at the very front was one she’d always held closest; it was the first time she’d actually met Rallen, about two months after partnering up with Rex.

The day had started simple, had continued as such, and they had been able to return to Kollin well before dinner, too. And that was where it had changed from normal to… well, different.

“Hey Lizzy!” Rex had quipped as she had been re-calibrating the controls of their cruiser, making her wince. She always _did_ hate that nickname he’d given her not long after their initial meeting.

“Stop calling me that, Rex,” she said without looking up from her work.

She could see him pout from the corner of her eye. “Aww… don’t be such a sour puss already. I was just gonna ask you out to dinner.”

Liz nearly froze, but she stopped herself as she turned to face Rex, who was grinning widely. “Excuse me?”

“Well, not exactly ‘out’, but oh well. You’re not planning to sit here the whole night _again_ , do you?” he said simply.

“I’d rather stay here for the night than--”

“Have the cruiser crash on us. Yap, yap, yap. Yanno, we got techs for that, so let’s move!” Rex said simply, getting up from his seat, snagging her wrist and giving a sharp yank, making the chair spin around as she was pulled to her feet and out of the cruiser.

“Wha!? Rex! Let me go!!” she demanded, trying to wrench her hand loose. But, of course, Rex was much stronger than her, so he had no trouble in dragging her out of HQ, to which no one really looked up; they were used to it by now.

Before long, Rex had dragged her all the way to the residential district. She wasn’t sure why they were _there_ , but there was no sense in asking, since Rex didn’t look about to tell her. After a bit, they arrived at a simple house, and Rex nearly dragged her those last few steps with how fast he was walking. She’d given up on asking, so she just followed him inside when he opened the door. As they stepped into the hall, the first thing to enter her mind was that the place looked cozy enough.

Once the door closed, Rex took a short breath, before he called out, surprising Liz a bit: “Mom! I’m home!!”

And then he let go of her hand just as a red-haired woman came from one of the rooms, her face lit up with a combination of surprise and glee. “Rex!” she cried out, instantly hurrying over to hug Rex, whom returned the hug with a big grin on his face. “I wasn’t expecting you home so early! Why didn’t you call?”

“I wanted to surprise ya, mom,” Rex quipped as he pulled back. “Oh, by the by, this is Lizzy. She’s my new partner,” he added, gesturing to Liz.

“It’s ‘Liz’, not ‘Lizzy’, you dolt!” she hissed out angrily, but Rex only chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck. She was surprised when Rex’s mother giggled a bit as well.

“Hihi… I see. Well, it’s nice to meet you, Liz.”

‘At least she got it right…’ Liz just nodded quietly.

“So, is Rallen back yet?” Rex asked after a few seconds. Liz recognized the name; Rex often talked about his little brother, and she figured he was just as, if not more, energetic as Rex could be at times. Which was gonna be annoying; she had enough trouble with Rex at times, she didn’t need another person like that on her hands.

“Not yet. He should be back anytime, though,” his mother said politely.

“Arrite. Could ya do me a favor and not say I’m here yet?” Rex asked with a sly smirk on his face.

Liz rolled her eyes as his mother agreed to that. She was really not in the mood for this, but, sadly enough, she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Let alone when Rex suddenly snagged her wrist again and pulled her up the stairs. “H-hey! Stop that already!”

Of course, Rex did not stop in the least, and as such, they ended up Rex’s room, which he clearly shared with his little brother. And, to be honest, Liz was rather surprised at how tidy the entire place was. If she wasn’t mistaken, Rallen had to be around 6 years old, and she had never seen a 6-year-old’s room tidier than this one. So either he actually cleaned up after himself or his mom did every time.

They spent several minutes in that room, since Rex preferred at least getting the gauntlets and boots out of the way. Not that she really blamed him; they did often get in the way. So in the end, she did the same with her own, ignoring Rex’s chuckles.

After about 20 minutes of being upstairs, they both picked up the sound of the door opening downstairs, and an energetic voice announcing his homecoming in a similar fashion as Rex had done less than an hour earlier. The grin on Rex’s face could never mean anything good, and yet she silently followed after him when he beckoned her to do so. They moved down the stairs stealthily, and as they came downstairs, Liz could see a small boy with the same orange mass of hair as Rex standing near the entrance to the kitchen.

“Welcome home, Rallen!” his mother called out from her cooking. “How was school?”

“Meh. Was good I guess… so when’s dinner ready?” the kid asked, rapidly changing the subject to, obviously, avoid the subject of school. Seriously, what kid _did_ want to talk about school at his age?

“Hmm… I’m afraid it might take a little longer; we’re having some guests over today.”

“…guests? Like who?” Rallen asked curiously.

Rex was grinning widely as he silently approached the kid from behind. And then he said: “Like me for one,” while snagging up the boy under his arms in the same instant.

“WAH!! Rex!? No fair! Put me dooOOOHAHAHAHA!! STOHAHAHAHAP!!”

Liz couldn’t stop a chuckle coming from her mouth as Rex continued to ‘torture’ his little brother, the boy’s feet kicking out in an attempt to fight off the much taller man. When Rex finally let up, Liz merely shook her head slightly in exasperation, but said nothing.

Rallen panted for a bit, then turned his head around and pouted. “No fair! When did you get home?”

“Just today, actually,” Rex laughed out, letting Rallen wriggle around so the kid could hug him around his neck. Liz just watched them for a moment, before Rallen spotted her over his brother’s shoulder and perked up curiously. Realizing what Rallen was looking at, Rex turned around to face Liz. “Oh yeah, Rallen, this is--”

“If you say that nickname again I’m gonna hurt you.”

Rex chuckled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. Rallen blinked in surprise, looking back and forth between the two for several moments. The question that popped out of Rallen’s mouth then not only surprised Liz, but Rex as well. “Are you brother’s girlfriend??”

Now if anyone else had asked, she would have responded with a venomous “I most certainly am NOT!” but Rallen’s curious and typically childish expression stopped her from saying just that. Obviously, Rallen hadn’t been aware of Rex having a female partner as an NPP officer. Plus, there was just something about him that didn’t let her be angry with him.

So instead, while Rex was still trying to think of what to say, she said simply: “No, kid, I’m not. I’m just his partner.”

Rallen blinked a few times even as Rex sighed softly in relief. “You’re NPP…?” he asked curiously.

“Yes.”

Silence for a moment, before Rallen grinned widely. “Cool!”

Liz chuckled as she rubbed her forehead, picking up the framed picture and gazing at it quietly. The picture had been taken after dinner that night. Rather than head back home, she’d been invited to stay the night. And, since there had been no one waiting for her at her dorm at NPP Headquarters, there hadn’t been much of a reason to decline.

Afterwards, they, that is Rex, Rallen and herself, had decided to pass the time by playing some video games.

And Rex, the bastard, had been kicking their asses.

She chuckled as she remembered Rallen jumping on Rex after he’d won yet another round, which had brought to light an interesting fact; Rallen wasn’t the only one in the household who was ticklish. Of course, Rex had the upper hand because he was much bigger, so he’d managed to snag up Rallen and hold him up above him, since the tackle had left him on his back on the ground.

Sadly, while Rex was busy keeping the struggling Rallen up, he’d forgotten one crucial detail that became his own undoing; it was two against one.

When Liz poked his side, his body had flinched instinctively as he yelped in surprise, dropping Rallen back down. What had followed was both Liz and Rallen teaming up on Rex, whom in the end was howling in laughter and unable to escape the lethal tag-team.

Shaking her head, Liz set the picture back with the others and walked over to her bed to lay down. She wasn’t expecting to get a whole lot of sleep tonight, but she kept trying every night. Dropping down, she pressed a switch to the side, causing all the lights still on in the dorm to go out. She’d installed that since she often forgot at least one light somewhere that she didn’t find out about until it was morning.

Liz sighed once more, before she shut her eyes and willed for sleep to come.

 

“Hey, Liz?” She blinked a bit and looked over to Rex in the pilot’s seat. He rarely ever called her that unless something serious was up, since he preferred to address her as ‘Lizzy’. Rex wasn’t looking up from the controls, keeping his focus on their course.

“…What?” she asked after a bit. She really wasn’t in the mood right now; they’d been out in space for too long already, and the mission wasn’t even over yet. Sure, it was just a patrol mission, but it was annoying as well.

Rex didn’t reply for a bit, seeming to think about whatever was on his mind for a moment longer. “…I was just wondering… if… if something ever happens to me, would you mind keeping tabs on Rallen for me?”

The question made her turn her chair around in surprise, staring at her partner for a long moment, before she asked: “What’s with that question? Why do you think something’s going to happen?”

“I don’t…” Rex admitted. “…But I’d rather be safe than sorry. Rallen… Rallen is really important to me, that’s why…” Sigh. “…I just want to make sure he’ll be alright, you know? He’s still got his whole life ahead of him, still…”

They fell silent then, the patrol cruiser’s engines being the only thing to penetrate the silence. After a moment, though, Liz finally spoke. “He really means that much to you?”

“Yeah… Dad disappeared before Rallen was born, so I’ve always held myself responsible for him. He’s a good kid, but… he’s still too dependent. Partially my own fault, I admit, but… I dunno. I fear that if something were to happen to those he holds closest, like mom and me, he’d flip. Or at least lose sight of his life… know what I mean?”

“…yeah…”

Yeah, she didn’t need to have that explained more clearly. She’d been there and had to get out of that pit of despair all on her own. She had somehow managed to do that, but with so much difficulty, that she often wondered if she wasn’t still stuck in there and had only crawled out of the pit inside the pit. That darkness of utter despair and loneliness… it was something she would not wish upon anyone, not even her enemies.

“…okay…”

“…eh?”

“I said; Okay, I’ll look after the brat if something happens.”

She didn’t look at him, but she could see him smiling from the corner of her eyes. “Heh… thanks Lizzy.”

“Would you stop with that already?!” she chided, swatting at his head and missing as he ducked, laughing. It wasn’t that she really minded it nowadays, but it was more like their little tradition.

She was about to turn back to her work, when the alarms suddenly blared, startling them both. “The hell?!” Rex yowled out as he tried to move the control sticks. “Dammit! It’s stuck!”

Liz rapidly typed in some commands, but they were all answered with error screens. “Must be a glitch in the system! We have to get out of here!”

“Roger!”

Both of them leapt up from their seats, hurrying towards the escape pods. However, as they did, something detonated off to the side, and Liz screamed when it hit her from the left, forcing her against the wall, hitting her head hard on the metal surface.

From there on, everything was a blur and she could only remember a few tidbits of what happened. The thing she felt the most, though, was the burning heat that licked at her body even as the main source was removed. She could barely see, could barely walk, and had to rely on Rex to help her move into her pod.

“I’m sending you off first! I’ll be right behind you, I swear!”

His voice seemed so far off then, but she couldn’t do anything as he put the mask on her face that would allow her to sleep for the escape, quickly shutting the top and sending it out of the cruiser. Liz tried to stay focused, staring out of the plexi-glass casing through blurry sight. Before she lost consciousness, she saw a single burst of light, though just before that, she was sure she saw something else barely escaping the explosion of their cruiser.

“AH!”

Liz shot up in bed, then cried out and reached up to cover the left side of her face. Even though she had been blind on the left for years, when awaking from a nightmare, she would instinctively attempt to open both eyes. And since the left could not be opened without extreme pain, she always suffered when awaking from a nightmare.

A single tear escaped her eye, before it was wiped away. She always dreamt of that day; the last time she had seen Rex, when he said he would be coming right after her, but something had gone horribly wrong. The next thing she remembered was waking up on Genshi. The heat had not left a good impression on her after the incident, and she had nearly broken down and cried. Only by using her sheer self-control had she managed to overcome her fear of the heat around her and began making her way to safety.

She was later found by one of the NPP officers who’d picked up her pod’s distress beacon. There had been no one else on Genshi with her when she was found…

But Liz knew that Rex was out there. Knew that he would be back soon, and even if she was the only one to believe it, she intended to wait for him as long as it took. Because he was her partner, and she trusted him with her life. Plus, he had people on Kollin who were waiting for him.

Telling Rallen about what had happened had not been something she’d been looking forward to, but she knew that it was necessary. And she’d rather have it be her than someone else who had not seen Rex escaping the cruiser. They’d just unnecessarily hurt the boy.

Shockingly, it had not ended the way she had expected it to. Which was good, mind you.

When she’d gotten back to HQ, Rallen had somehow snuck into the docks when he’d heard about what had happened. She wouldn’t ask how he’d done that, but it had only forced Liz into telling him what had occurred. The moment Rallen saw her, he’d broken free from the other NPP officers’ grip and ran towards her as he shouted for her. Liz had stumbled a short distance, as her left leg wouldn’t move properly yet, before she had dropped down to her knees and caught the boy as he ran into her arms, hugging her around her neck.

“Lizzy, where’s Rex? Wasn’t he with you?” he asked, sounding like he was trying hard not to cry.

She really didn’t want to tell him, but she knew that if she didn’t, someone else would, and they wouldn’t be as caring as she would. After taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she whispered, even as one of the Commanders walked over, moving Rallen back a bit so she could look at him properly: “Rallen, I… I’ll be honest with you… There was an accident on the cruiser. We… Rex and I… we were separated in the chaos.”

The look on Rallen’s face at that specific moment came very close to making _her_ want to cry. It was such a crestfallen look that it would topple Grant if he’d been there to see it. “…he… he’s…gone…?” The tears were already starting to form and Liz knew she had to work fast to correct what she had said.

The Commander behind her sighed. “I’m afraid he’s truly--”

“Shut UP!!” Liz shouted back at the man, startling both him and Rallen, who blinked in surprise. Liz turned back to Rallen and said: “Rallen, I know your brother; he wouldn’t let a cruiser blowing up get him down like that. We both got out of that thing before it blew up, I know that for a fact, but I’m guessing the explosion might have knocked his pod off course.” Reaching out, she ruffled Rallen’s hair and put on a small smile. “Now cheer up, alright? Your brother wouldn’t want to come home to see you crying like that, would he? He’d want to come home to see you smile at him.”

Rallen looked struck dumb for a long time, blinking twice, causing tears to fall from his eyes, before he forced himself to grin. “Y-yeah! Yeah, you’re right! Rex’s not gonna die just like that!!”

Liz smiled and pulled Rallen into a hug again, not just for his support, but for her own as well.

They had both needed it now that their support had suddenly gone.

Rubbing at her temples, she looked over to her alarm clock, groaning as she realized she’d gotten only five hours of sleep. And of course, getting _back_ to sleep once she was awake wasn’t going to work, either.

“…might as well get up, then…”

 

The day was progressing slowly, and Liz wasn’t really surprised. She had spent most of the morning in the shooting range, trying to see how much her sight had gone now. While she had managed to hit the target through the center with every shot she’d fired, she wasn’t satisfied with the results. She rarely ever was these days.

The targets had not moved, but had they been moving, she was sure she would have missed. Because she only had one eye left to work with, she’d lost her sense of depth. She could attempt to calculate how far away a target was, but math had never really been her strongest asset. She was good enough with numbers, just not good enough to calculate on the spot how far away something was.

The worst part of the shooting range, though, was if there were rookies around who tried to compliment her on how well she was shooting. It only pissed her off, so she tended to leave as soon as she could. The first time she’d taken Rallen along, though, she had finally understood what Rex had told her once.

“ _Rallen has a unique gift that some of us can only dream of; if he sees something being done, no matter how complicated, he can copy it. You show him how to fix something when it’s busted, and next time it breaks, he’ll fix it. You show him how to fight, or how to shoot a gun, and he’ll be able to do it. As long as he shows interest in it._ ”

She’d noticed that when he begged to try it, to which she finally relented after shooting another target full of holes. Rallen had taken the gun with a big grin, before he took a stance next to her, aimed for a brief second, and started to fire at the target.

He hit it dead center every time.

Liz had been skeptical of Rex’s claims before, but now she understood what he meant perfectly.

Sighing softly, Liz leaned back in her seat. She was bored, but what could she do? She still had a heap of work to finish before the deadline. Sometimes she wondered why she stuck around at the NPP…

_“Commander Marks, please report to Commander Grant’s office.”_

Liz growled at the message. “Dammit! _Now_ what does he want!?” she snarled, getting up from her seat and heading out, making sure to lock her office behind her as she went. Thankfully, it wasn’t such a far walk, but she was still getting annoyed, though she made sure it didn’t show.

As she entered Grant’s office, she solemnly walked over to the desk and stopped about 3 feet away, waiting until Grant looked up from his work. “You wanted to see me, sir?” she asked simply, though her tone was clipped and to the point.

Grant grunted at the tone. “Still as blunt as ever…”

“Don’t start with that again, alright? Just get to the point.” This was really getting annoying.

“…As you wish. You may wish to have a seat, though.”

“I’m fine standing right here,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Grant remained silent for a long time, before he sighed. “Very well… As you know, in a few days, it will be exactly 10 years since Rex… disappeared.” She knew he hated using that term around her, since he was clearly one of the people who believed Rex had died.

“Your point?”

“This has been on my mind for a long time now… When you told us what happened, you mentioned that there was a ‘glitch’ in the systems, correct?”

“It sure seemed that way. I can’t say for certain.”

“Doesn’t it seem strange to you?”

“…what do you mean?”

“When the ‘glitch’ happened, you had left Nessa merely two hours prior, and the mechanics there had the cruiser checked out and fine-tuned. Then why did that glitch happen?”

Liz only stared at Grant for a long moment, before she asked: “So wait… you’re saying that… it might not have been accident?”

“This is only speculation, mind you,” Grant pointed out. “But… it’s struck me as odd all these years. Perhaps it was indeed a glitch, but what if there was something else? What if there had been someone aiming to get rid of either you or Rex?”

Liz had nothing to say to this.

“Liz, all I’m asking, is be careful. It might be nothing at all and then it might have been a waste, but I would rather have that than lose someone else because we did nothing.”

“ …” Liz shut her eye and tilted her head down for a moment, thinking, before she looked back up. “…Very well. I’ll be careful.”

 

About 20 minutes later found Liz back in her office, staring outside through the window, wondering about the Commander’s words. Now that she thought of the whole ordeal with a much calmer attitude than 10 years ago, she had to admit, he had a point. Why did the glitch occur after they’d just had the ship checked on Nessa? Had it been the fault of a mechanic, or… was there really something more?

“Rallen! Wait up!!”

Liz blinked at the shout and looked down through her window, spotting a familiar boy running out of NPP Headquarters, laughing as another familiar face ran after him.

“Come on! You’re too slow! Step on it!!” he laughed, though she could tell he wasn’t running full-throttle. If he had, there was no way Jeena would’ve been able to catch up. A small smile found its way on her face as she just watched the duo as they ran, heading into town.

“Well, at least they’ve made up…” she said to herself, before her gaze turned upwards to the skies and her smile fell. “…Rex… I wish you could see this… Your little brother’s growing up without you… So you better hurry back, before there’s no way you can get out of Rallen’s shadow…”

Leaning against the windowsill, she sighed.

“You’ve kept us waiting long enough… so come back already, you dolt…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ends the setup for all other stories that have flowed forth from this. Keep an eye on the other stories.


End file.
